...the Garamantes - a mysterious desert people of Greco-Roman date (broadly 500 BC AD 500)... Inhabiting a region that had already been for several thousand years a hyper-arid desert environment, with negligible rainfall, elevated summer temperatures and blistering expanses of barren sand and rock... have long been an enigma. They were depicted by Roman sources as ungovernable nomadic barbarians, who raided the settled agricultural zone and cities of the Mediterranean littoral. Following up earlier work by Daniels, the current project allows a different picture of the Garamantes to be drawn. Archaeological evidence shows them to have been a complex and urbanised society, with a strong emphasis on oasis agriculture a picture far removed from the shiftless nomads of our ancient sources...

With over 500 Garamantian sites now recorded, and many susceptible to dating for the first time, a reappraisal of this early Libyan state can be made on the basis of concrete evidence. The picture that emerges is of a powerful Saharan polity, employing a wide range of material culture and architectural styles to reinforce a pronounced social hierarchy. Faunal analysis shows that there were animals in the diet, notably sheep/goat, but it is clear that pastoralism lagged far behind sedentary agriculture in this desert kingdom... the very scale of Garamantian irrigated agriculture may have had a long-term impact on the aquifer they were tapping into... by the later middle ages all the foggaras appear to have been abandoned in favour of small-scale garden cultivation based on wells.

Sounds like they had to regress because the acquifer ran dry. Wait, the climate was changing back then too?? How is that possible?? Aren’t we always being told that only modern human industries can do that??

Modern (such as it is) Libya has been building a mother of a water conduit to tap desert aquifers for coastal use. Yeah, that’ll work. No point in learning from the experiences of people for the Time of Ignorance.

8
posted on 12/26/2010 9:15:57 PM PST
by SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)

B-24 Bomber Lady Be Good. This aircraft was discovered in the Libyan Desert 16 years after it lost its way back from a World War II mission to bomb Naples, Italy on 4 April 1943. The plane was found in 1959 by an oil exploration team, miraculously preserved by the desert environment. The next year the bodies of eight of the nine crew members were recovered by Quartermaster Graves Registration personnel.

Clear glass used to be placed in ancient Syria (Aram), but it really came into its own during the Roman Empire. Sez here on the wiki-wacky that Roman glassmaking was centered on Trier, in Germany. Anyway, regardless, if you’re ever near this, go to it:

It would seem like a natural in any country with a lot of waste ground, lots of sun, and access to the sea. It would require a water to water heat exchange system so that the more briny solution that has been giving off evaporation in the heat could be freshened with less briny solution from the sea. It could run off photovoltaics and windmills (not necessarily wind-generated electricity), but fairly low-maintenance, be very low cost, and the condensation process could take place up a hill in a buried tank (actually a series of them) with no vent. It would be extravagant in size for the amount of freshwater made, but cheap as all get-out.

15
posted on 12/26/2010 9:26:52 PM PST
by SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)

It could work even better offshore — a sort of cell structure, like a beehive, brine would sink, heat would exchange, fresher water would rise, sun’s rays would evaporate it, and the part of this floating flexi plastic that rode high would be continuously evacuated by blowers, carrying the hot vapor-laden air to shore, up one or more black rigid tubes getting that last bit of solar heat, then plunge through the tank wall, across the water that was already collected, there to condense. Simpler, maybe even cheaper, probably easier to operate, and unlimited size. Also would have the virtue of not consuming the shoreline, which would then be (trickle-) irrigated for agriculture as well as general refoliation.

22
posted on 12/26/2010 9:39:47 PM PST
by SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)

The "Lady Be Good" Stained Glass Window from the Wheelus Air Force Base Chapel is now on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

The fueslage of the Lady Be Good, found in the desert seventeen years after the crash

In a souvenir photograph taken shortly before the crash, the crewmen of the Lady Be Good clown for the camera. From left:Staff Sergeant Vernon L. Moore, Second Lieutenant Hays, Second Lieutenant John S. Woravka, Staff Sergeant Guy E. Shelley, and Technical Sergeant Harold J. Ripslinger.

2nd Lt. David R. Kingsley Born at Portland, Oregon, June 27, 1918, he earned the Medal of Honor during World War II, where he served as a bombardier on a B-17 on a raid into Romania on June 23, 1944. During the mission the aircraft was badly damaged by enemy fire and forced to drop out of the formation. The pilot continued on to the target, the Ploesti Oil Fields, and there he dropped his bombs, severely damaging the installation. The aircraft was unable to keep up with the formation on the return trip and was attacked by enemy aircraft, during which the plane was further damaged and the tail gunner badly wounded. Kingsley gave aid to the gunner and then went to give aid to the ball gunner who had also been wounded. The pilot gave the order to bail out but Kingsley found that the tail gunner's parachute was missing. He placed his own chute on the wounded man and then he helped the wounded men bail out of the burning plane. The last sight of him was as he stood on the bomb bay catwalk while the plane flew on auto pilot until it crashed a few minutes later.

It wasn’t jungle like. However, it may not have been as dry and dead as it is today. The Sahel is losing its lakes and dying of “desertification” from over-grazing by goats and sheep. These cities may have been on the edge of dry grassland in their time before their livestock destroyed the grasses, causing the areas to dry up.

Actually, we were told that modern urban civilizations, in addition to natural phenomena, can effect climate change on a large scale.

We already knew that pre-modern civilizations can effect climate change. Diamond’s “Collapse” gives a great explanation of what occurred on Easter Island as it was gradually deforested.

Cape Verde Island is another great example of man-made climate (in this case, micro-climate) change. Named “Cape Verde” by European explorers because it was so lush and verdant, the island was deforested over 200 years of intense habitation. Rain clouds had formerly been “caught” by the forests as they moved out from the African continent. With the trees gone, the clouds just passed right over without dropping precipitation.

Today Cape Verde is dry, dusty, impoverished. We’ve known for centuries that men can effect the climate, just as natural phenomena can.

“They were depicted by Roman sources as ungovernable nomadic barbarians.”

Well, it’s pretty obvious that the Garamantes could by governed by themselves. It’s the *Romans* that they weren’t interested in being governed by.

Of course, the Romans wrote the history books after the Garamantes were gone, so they could depict them in any way they wanted. That’s usually the way it works: empires always depict the people that fight back as “barbarians,” “uncivilized,” “pagans,” “primitive.” That why I love Herodotus. He reports these civilizations as an anthropologist would, without judgment. It makes for much more informative reading.

Yup, Herodotus had no axes to grind, unlike his ancient-world critics and the mob of misinformed and/or Muzzies out there. He traveled in Egypt as well as in the Persian empire, and preserved an invaluable corpus of testimony that would otherwise have been lost. The example I usually cite is his discussion of why the Nile floods out of season. He lists three that he heard, including the real reason, which he notes is the least likely of all, then offers a fourth of his own that’s unintentionally hilarious. :’) That’s a good example of his honesty, something often lacking in historians then and now.

48
posted on 12/27/2010 5:33:18 PM PST
by SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)

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